BOOK X.
9 toward Lorn. Barbour’s chronology is here not specific, but he apparently places the expedition against Lorn in the late summer or autumn of 1308. So does Fordun (see on Bk. IX. 204). On the other hand, there exists a letter from John of Lorn to Edward II., clearly referring to the present expedition. Unfortunately, it is not dated further than as an acknowledgment of the receipt of the King’s letters of March 11. About that date, in 1308, Bruce must have been in the North, beyond the Mounth (see on Bk. IX. 204). On June 16, 1309, Alexander of Lorn and John are in council with Edward at Westminster (Bain, iii., No. 95). Meantime Alexander of Argyll is in the sederunt of Bruce’s first Parliament, March 16, 1309, at St. Andrews (Act. Parl. Scot., vol. i., p. 160). Either, then, Bruce’s expedition is to be placed in the spring and early summer of 1309, or, after the defeat at Loch Awe, John of Lorn held out during the winter, and Dunstaffnage fell at some date between March 11, 1308, and June 16, 1309.
14 twa thousand. In the letter referred to above, John of Lorn says that “Robert Bruce had approached his territories with 10,000 or 15,000 men, it was said, both by land and sea. He had no more than 800 to oppose him, 500 of these being in his pay to keep his borders, and the barons of Argyll gave him no aid.... He has three castles to guard, and a lake 24 leagues (miles) long on which he has vessels properly manned, but is not sure of his neighbours” (Bain, iii., No. 80). Lorn’s estimate of Bruce’s strength is clearly exaggerated. Hemingburgh similarly gives Bruce 10,000 men in his Galloway wanderings (ii., p. 265).
17 Ane evill place. From the description, the Pass of Brander through which the River Awe flows from Loch Awe to Loch Etive, a sea-loch. The Callander-Oban Railway follows this route. The Pass is three miles long.
27 Crechanben. Cruachan Ben, or Ben Cruachan, on the north side, 3,689 feet.
34-35 on the se ... with his galays. Skeat says this must be “Loch Etive, a sea-loch, not the inland Loch Awe, from which the ships could not have escaped.” He is thinking of line 130, but the flight there mentioned has no connection with the present case. Loch Etive is not “weill neir the pas” (35; cf. also 97, 98), but Loch Awe is, and we see from Lorn’s letter (note on 14) that he had ships on that loch. He says further that he “was on sick-bed” when he received Edward’s letters, “and had been for half a year”; which probably accounts for his presence in a galley, or large Highland row-boat, as the Marquis of Argyll was, for a like reason, when his forces were cut to pieces by Montrose at Inverlochy in 1645.
46 Williame Wisman. A “William Wysman” was made Edward’s Sheriff at Elgin in 1305 (Bain, ii., p. 458). The wife of “Monsieur William Wysman” was among the ladies captured in 1306, and was sent to Roxburgh (Foedera, ii., p. 1014). William Wyseman was at the St. Andrews Parliament, 1309 (Act. Parl. Scot., i., p. 160). It was a Moray name.
47 Schir Androu Gray. Ancestor of the Lords Gray. Sir Andrew Gray received from Bruce in 1315 the barony of Longforgan and other lands in Perthshire and Forfarshire, which had belonged to Edmond Hastings (Robertson’s Index, p. 26, No. 19; Crawford’s Peerage, p. 179, ed. 1716).
82 ane wattir. The River Awe. The river here is wide, deep, and broken by rapids.
88 till brek it. The bridge, of course, was of wood. It was probably beyond the lower extremity of the Pass, somewhere near the present bridge.
113 Dunstaffynch. In Fordun Dunstafynch; Dunstaffnage Castle at the mouth of Loch Etive.
126 And com his man. As has already been noted (see on 9), Alexander of Arygll is, with the other “barons” of Argyll and the Hebrides, present at Bruce’s Parliament at St. Andrews, which, if correct, indicates that Barbour, so far, is right. Lorn wrote to Edward that, “though he and his were few in respect of his power, Robert de Brus had asked a truce from him, which he granted for a short space, and received the like, till the King sends him succours. He hears that Robert, when he came, was boasting and saying that the writer had come to his peace at the report that many others would rise in his aid, which God and the writer know is not true. Should the King hear this from others, he is not to believe it” (Bain, as cited). Fordun’s story is that Bruce besieged Alexander of Argyll in Dunstaffnage, that the castle was surrendered, but Alexander refused to do homage and was allowed a safe-conduct for himself and friends to England (Gesta Annalia, cxxvi.).
137 at Lythkow wes than a peill. Linlithgow “peel” was constructed by Edward I. in 1301-1302. Barbour’s chronology is again at fault, or he is not concerned about it. Linlithgow was still being munitioned against the Scots in August, 1313 (Bain, iii., No. 330). Barbour appears to be simply grouping the different captures of castles together (see lines 144-7). Strictly a “peel” was a fortification consisting of a stockade and ditch, enclosing the buildings of the garrison (see lines 144-7).
153 Wilyhame Bunnok. See note on 254. C reads Bowne here, but Bunnok in line 194.
180 the hede-soyme. That is, the “trace” or “traces” connecting the animals with the cart would be cut, when the waggon would block the gateway. By a similar trick, in which the agents are dressed as carters and the traces are loosened by withdrawing the pins, Oudenarde was captured in 1384 (Froissart, Johnes, ii., chap. cli.).
185 the harvist tyde. September or October, 1313. See above on 137.
195 To leid thair hay. To “lead” the hay, still the usual country phrase, is to bring it in from the field to the place of storage. Bunnok was to gather the hay and cart it to the castle.
196 but dangeir. “Without difficulty,” readily.
223 callit his wayn. “Drove” or “urged forward” his waggon. The word occurs in this sense in the Wallace “Thir cartaris ... callyt furth the cartis weill” (Bk. ix. 717-8), where, as usual, the incident is borrowed from the Bruce. Cf. Burns: “Ca the yowes to the knowes.”
232 he leyt the gadwand fall. “He” is not Bunnock, but the driver, who drops his goad and cuts the trace.
254 hym rewardit worthely. According to Nisbet’s Heraldry, Bunnock is the same name as Binning, and the arms of Binning of Easter-Binning are “placed on the bend of a waggon argent”; and he gives as an explanation that “one of the heads of that family, with his seven sons, went in a waggon covered with hay, surprised and took the castle of Linlithgow, then in the possession of the English, in the reign of David II.” (I. 100, ed. 1816). The reference is clearly to the present incident, though “sons” is a later development, and the date is wrong. Jamieson is highly suspicious over the identification, and it seems, in fact, to be a case of ancestry manufacture.
265-6 Murref ... And othir syndri landis braid. “Murref” is English transcription of the Gaelic form, muiraibh, dative plural of muir, the sea. The grant to Randolph was most extensive, including lands from the mouth of the Spey to Lochaber and Mamore, and “the marches of northern Argyll,” and covering 2,550 square miles in Banff, Elgin, Nairn, and Inverness (Robertson’s Index of Charters, p. xlix; Rampini’s Moray and Nairn, p. 140).
324 Schir Peris Lumbard. Peter de Loubaud (Lybaud, Libaut) was constable of Edinburgh Castle and the peel of Linlithgow in March, 1312 (Bain, iii., No. 254). Edinburgh Castle was captured during Lent, 1314 (Chron. de Lanercost, p. 223; Fordun says March 14, 1314), by Randolph (Gesta Annalia, cxxx.); March 24, apparently, in Gesta Edw. de Carn. (p. 45), where it is said that Roxburgh and Edinburgh fell between February 29 and March 24, 1314. Hailes goes a year wrong in these dates, and Skeat adopts. For the intrusion of “m” before “b,” cf. Ferumbrace for Fierabras in Bk. III. 437.
327 mystrowit hym of tratory. So we have it in the Vita Edw. Sec. that Edinburgh Castle was captured “by the betrayal of a certain Gascon, who was known as Peter de Gavestone, to whom the King had committed the custody of the castle. He, a perjured traitor, adhered to Robert the Bruce, and betrayed the castle” (p. 199). Cf. on 766.
360-1 ledderis ... With treyn steppis, etc. Ladders of this sort are carefully described by the Carlisle friar as having been used at an unsuccessful siege of Berwick by Bruce in 1312. Two strong ropes were taken, of a length according to the height of the wall. These were knotted at intervals of a foot and a half; on these knots rested wooden (treyn) steps two and a half feet long by half a foot broad, sufficient for one man at a time, and every third step had a projection inwards, to keep the ladder out from the wall. At the top end was a curved iron (cf. “a cruk ... of iron”), one end of which, about a foot long, lay on the top of the wall, while the other hung down, was pierced with a hole, and had a ring on each side for the rope. In the hole a sufficiently long spear was inserted, by which the ladder was put in position by two men. When the Scots had placed two ladders for a night attack, a dog barked, and Berwick was saved, the Scots making off and leaving their ladders behind to be hung up in derision of the Scots by the garrison (p. 221).
372 on the fasteryn evyn. “Fastern’s Eve,” Shrove Tuesday, February 27, 1314. So, too, in Fordun (Gesta Annalia, cxxx.), and in Scalacronica, the night of Shrove Tuesday (p. 140); in Lanercost the capture is dated the day after, February 28, the first day of Lent, 1314 (p. 223). The castle was still in English hands on February 7, 1314 (Bain, iii., No. 352), but lost before May 29 (No. 358), in 1314 (894).
400 up thair ledderis set. “For James (Douglas) himself on a certain night secretly approached the castle (of Roxburgh), and placed ladders, which had been carried up in concealment (latenter) against the wall, and so by these ascended the wall,” etc. (Vita Edw. Sec., p. 200).
441 The custom. It was the custom to spend the day before the beginning of the fast of Lent in feasting and jollity. This practice continued in Scotland long after the Reformation, when Lent was no more observed. The Vita Edw. says that the garrison were sleeping or off their guard.
456-7 Gylmyne de Fenis ... in the gret toure, etc. “They (the Scots) took the whole castle except one tower, to which, with difficulty, had escaped the warden of the castle, Sir Gilminus de Fenes, a Gascon knight, and his men with him, but that tower the Scots had soon afterwards” (Lanercost, p. 223). Sir William de Filinge (Filling, Felynges) was constable of Roxburgh since 1312 at least (Bain, iii., Nos., 332, 337, 351). On the conduct of Roxburgh garrison see on Bk. XI. 46.
479 Woundit so felly. According to Gray, “Guillemyng Fenygges” was killed by an arrow while holding the great tower (Scala., p. 140).
496 to tummyll it doune. “And all this beautiful castle, as with all the other castles which they were able to get, they laid level with the ground, that the English might never afterwards by holding the castles be able to dominate the country” (Lanercost, p. 223). So also Vita Edw. Sec., p. 199, and Gesta Edw., p. 45, where it is alleged that Bruce did this to prevent the Scottish nobles taking refuge therein instead of helping him. See on Bk. IX. 452, and below on 771.
504 Outane Jedworth. There was fighting about Jedburgh in 1315, 1316 (Bain, iii., No. 494), but it was still in English hands in 1321 (ibid., 746).
509 At Edinburgh. Edinburgh Castle was still in English hands in August, 1313 (Bain, iii., No. 330). See further note on 324.
513 all his purchas. “By his own procurement.”
516 voidry. Skeat’s suggestion. See footnote. It means “cunning, stratagem” (S).
529 “Ere that siege should miscarry, or go wrong.” Cf. on Bk. I. 478. The mood here is subjunctive, past tense.
530 William Francas. Francis or “Fraunceys” appears from Bain to have been a common name in the Lothians. A “William Francis” got lands from Bruce in Roxburgh in 1322. His grant just precedes one to John Crab (Robertson’s Index to Charters, p. 15, No. 20; cf. Bk. XVII. 239).
701 The Erll has tane the castell all. The Lanercost historian says the castle was captured in this manner: “Those besieging the same castle, one day in the evening, made a bold assault on the south gate, because on account of the position of the castle, there was no other place where an assault could be given. But those within, all collecting at the gate, resisted them stoutly; meanwhile, however, others of the Scots climbed the rock on the north side, which was very high and steep, up to the foundation of the wall, and there, placing their ladders against the wall, they climbed up in such numbers that those within could make no resistance; and so they (the Scots) opened the gates and brought in their friends, and took the whole castle and slew the English” (p. 223). The Scalacronica account is that Moray took the castle at the highest part of the rock, where there was no thought of danger (a quoi il ne se dotoit) (p. 140).
708 Lap fra a berfrois. For a “beffroi,” see on Bk. XVI. 597. O.F., “berfroi,” etc. For form “belfry,” cf. “pilgrim,” from “peregrinus”; in English not before the fifteenth century. French dropped the “r” (N.E.D.). The reference here is to one of the Alexander romances, of which there was no translation, and is indicative of Barbour’s familiarity with this literature. Cf. Appendix E.
740 in stede of prophesye. “In the way of, or as, a prophecy.”
742 hir chapell. St. Margaret’s Chapel, built for Queen Margaret, wife of Malcolm Canmore. She died in Edinburgh Castle in 1093. In 1336 the chapel was fitted with four windows of glass (Bain, iii., p. 335).
746 as old men sayis. The picture and inscription were, therefore, no longer extant.
747 “Gardez-vous de Francois.” “Beware of Francis or of the French.”
766 he becom the Kingis man. Gray tells how “Lebaud” went over to Bruce, but, because he was in heart English (qil estoit Engles qe quer), Bruce had him accused of treason and hanged (Scala., p. 140). The official record is that he was convicted of treason, and, from his forfeitures, he seems to have received large holdings in Lothian (Reg. Mag. Sig., where he is styled Peter Luband, p. 3, 3; p. 13, 63, 64, 66).
771 myne doune all halely. The Lanercost writer adds that the Scots levelled Edinburgh Castle to the ground, as they had done Roxburgh.
815 Fra the lenteryne. Lent, 1313. In the Vita Edw. it is said that Mowbray brought the news of his pact at the beginning of Lent, which must be Lent, 1314, suggesting a considerable difference in dates (p. 200).
816 Quhill ... Saint Johnnis mess. That is, by June 24, 1313, the English garrison began to find their food running short. “Their victual was insufficient” (Vita Edw., p. 200).
822-3 it was nocht with battaill Reskewit. So, too, in Vita Edw. Sec., where the agreement is that Mowbray “would either procure the King of England to come to the defence of the castle, or, if he should not be able to induce the King to do this, that he would summarily (indilate) surrender the castle.” St. John’s day is fixed as the limiting date. The writer makes Robert Bruce himself conduct the siege (p. 200). So does Gray, who says that the castle was to be surrendered, “unless the English army came within three leagues of the said castle within eight days after St. John’s day in the summer next to come” (dedenz viii jours apres le Saint Johan en este adonques procheine avenir, p. 141). But cf. Bk. XI. 8-9.